Published in October 2017, by the Romany and Traveller Family History Society, this book is the first of a two part in-depth genealogical study of one of the most celebrated and prominent families in Britain’s Romany community, the Boswells. It’s essential background reading for anyone with Romany Boswell ancestors but also for those whose relatives intermarried with or travelled with this widespread family, guiding the reader through from the Boswells’ likely origins during the English Civil War when Romany people were hunted down, and persecuted with puritanical fever, to their subsequent growth and development in the heady and dangerous days of the Georgian era, the height of the English prize ring, the footpad and the dashing highwayman, and through to the dawn of the Regency period.
Published by The Romany and Traveller Family History Society, A4, 138 pages, numerous illustrations in black and white.
Reviews
Amazing book, unparalleled in its scope and originality. Perhaps most exciting of all are Richard Edmunds discoveries of the earliest known record of Romany Boswells in England, the 1670 marriage of Elizabeth Boswell, a ‘Gypsy’, at Stamford Baron, Northamptonshire, and the baptisms of the famed early family patriarch, Shadrach Boswell, and that of his father, Robert Boswell, in the early part of the 18th century. With this information the origins of the Romany Boswell family are clearer than ever before. Terrific Work. - Genealogical Reviewer, Winter 2017
Your Bowells books are an important asset to the RTFHS publications collection. Our Facebook stats show news about the book has reached nearly 21,000 people already. That’s an amazing figure – many thousands more than we normally reach with our posts on our FB page. Thank you for offering the two books to us. They may inspire many more to think about joining the RTFHS. - S.Heppell, Publications Editor, Romany and Traveller Family History Society, email correspondence with author, Winter 2017/8
Heartiest congratulations on your excellent debut as a Gypsy genealogist. Your discovery of Shadrach Boswell's baptism is a real breakthrough. Delighted that you've burst on the scene & am sure you will doubtless delight further with more discoveries. - Eric Trudgill and Anne-Marie Ford, Romany Genealogists, email correspondence with the author , March 2014
Many congratulations on your Boswell discoveries, what an excellent and exciting break-through. - Bob Dawson, President of the Romany and Traveller Family History Society, email correspondence with author, November 2013
Buyer Feedback
Have just ordered Part Two. The first volume was excellent. – G. E, online review, March 2018.
I read the book with great interest and it became clear to me that the author had more to say about the origins of the Boswells than one would hear from most. I have already enquired into ordering the second volume on the Boswells and I am very much looking forward to it. - Reader review, March 2018.